Think local, former U.N. leader Kofi Annan tells Miami forum

In the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in Coconut Grove on Monday, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, addressed a crowd of well-dressed world savers to open the Continuity Forum of the Americas Business Council (abc*). In a speech that touched on the environment, the Arab awakening, democracy in Latin America, the spiraling conflict in Syria, nuclear war and resource scarcity, Annan encouraged attendees to address these and other problems by thinking local.

“People ask me all the time, ‘what should one do to become a global citizen?’ I tell them, get involved with your community, your city, your town, your village,” Annan said.

For abc*, a think tank dedicated to “people, planet and philanthropy” in the Americas, Miami is the center of that community. Smack dab in the middle of the hemisphere, for two years Miami has hosted the annual Continuity Forum that attracts more than 300 people from all over North and South America. Rebecca Mandelman, senior director of the abc* based in Miami Beach, said she has recently seen more and more of these would-be world changers coming to Miami to stay.

“There’s this intellectual thirst in Miami that brings a lot of these forces together,” Mandelman said. Referring to the co-sponsoring organizations — many of them local, like the Knight Foundation, Univision, PODER magazine and technology company Ico Group — she said, “Miami is like the fulcrum, the center for people in our community.”

The three-day conference, which sold tickets in advance, features a full roster of impressive speakers, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. But the main focus is the competition between 32 “social entrepreneurs” who will present their projects to be judged by the five chairman of abc* and the foundation’s 23 fellows. The best three projects will receive $100,000 grants, media support and business connections for two years.

“We evaluate them by their potential to make the greatest impact,” said Mario Scarpetta, director of Colombian cement and energy company Inversiones Argos and co-chairman of abc*. To evaluate their effectiveness, he said abc* would review each project’s “strategic business plans and economic models of their impact.”

The projects range from a museum of sacred Peruvian plants and an indigenous tourism agency in Mexico to a Nicaraguan organization dedicated to fighting cancer and a “green roof” sustainable building company. The presentations, videos and question-and-answer sessions took place in English and Spanish, and Mandelman said she hoped the casual conversations between sessions would lead to future ideas and organizations.

Even entrepreneurs whose projects are not chosen for the abc* grant have the opportunity this week to interact with investors and leaders of the industries they seek to influence. Pati Ruiz of Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda in Mexico said her alliance of five conservation organizations is already active in central Mexico, but if awarded the grant she would use it to expand to the rest of the country and into South America.

“The strength of our project is that it’s already up and running,” Ruiz said in Spanish after her presentation. “We have the tools to expand and reproduce what we’re doing.”

Although most of the conference attendees were excited about the ideas, some expressed frustration with the lack of avenues for individuals to get involved.

“I think that’s the problem with a lot of these conferences: There are no action items, nothing you can really do if you’re not a big-time donor,” said one attendee who didn’t want to be named because he works for one of the co-sponsors of the conference. “We come, watch, applaud and leave.”

Still, abc* continues to connect some of the most creative innovators in a younger generation to current political and business leaders who have the resources to give their ideas wings, Mandelman said, and the rest of the Continuity Forum promises to help make this happen.

“We believe that collective engagement can advance the Americas,” she said.

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Thieves makes off with $35,000 from Miami restaurant

For the second time in four months, thieves hit a Miami restaurant and made off with thousands of dollars in cash.

Late Sunday night or early Monday morning, crooks broke into the Caribe Café in the 7100 block of West Flagler Street. Miami police said they gained access to the restaurant by breaking into a business next door and then cutting a hole in the wall.

Once inside, they stole a safe which had about $35,000 inside. They also took the DVR system that records the restaurant’s surveillance cameras.

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Voice of Elmo Accused of Relationship with Boy

The puppeteer who voices the Sesame Street character Elmo has been granted a leave of absence from the long-running children's show in the midst of an allegation that he had a past relationship with a 16-year-old boy.

The Sesame Workshop issued a statement Monday saying that it first learned about the allegation against 52-year-old Kevin Clash last June by a then 23-year-old man who claimed to have begun a relationship with Clash when he was 16. Clash has denied the allegation.

RELATED: Sneak Peek of Documentary Being Elmo

"We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action," the statement said. "We met with the accuser twice and had repeated communications with him. We met with Kevin, who denied the accusation."

The Sesame Workshop said it conducted its own investigation and found the allegation of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated, but it did determine that Clash violated policy."Although this was a personal relationship unrelated to the workplace, our investigation did reveal that Kevin exercised poor judgment and violated company policy regarding internet usage and he was disciplined.

VIDEO: Flashback - Destiny's Child on Sesame Street

The statement said the leave of absence was granted to allow Clash to take actions to protect his reputation from what he calls the "false and defamatory" allegation of underage conduct.

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NJ to end gasoline rationing Tuesday

New Jersey will end odd-even gasoline rationing at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Gov. Chris Christie says gas supplies are plentiful and there are no more lines of motorists waiting for fuel.

Christie imposed the rationing on Nov. 3 because some gas stations couldn't get fuel while others didn't have electricity to pump it as a result of Superstorm Sandy.

Rationing was put in effect in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Morris, Monmouth, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.

The governor noted New Jersey was first to impose rationing and that others followed the state's lead. New York did not impose rationing until Nov. 9, six days after New Jersey.

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Self-publishing industry explodes, brings rewards, challenges

The publishing world is being upended, and reinvented, by people like Hugh Howey, Ily Goyanes and Kristy Montee.

They are part of a movement using the power of e-books and the Internet to lead publishing into a new frontier, and through the biggest upheaval of the industry since Guttenberg’s press.

“It’s the Wild West,” Montee said. “It is literally changing at the speed of light.”

Howey is a writer who authored, designed, formatted and self-published all but the very first of his 14 novelettes and stories as e-books — and saw his Wool series of sci-fi stories make the Top 100 Kindle Best Sellers of 2012, above J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy and the four-book bundle of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones.

Goyanes is one of a new breed of independent publishers filling the void between self-publishing and traditional publishing giants, offering technical, marketing and distribution help for do-it-yourself authors.

Montee is a Fort Lauderdale-based writer better known to her readers — along with her sister and writing partner, Kelly Nichols — as P.J. Parrish, the pseudonymous author of the Louis Kincaid and Joe Frye thriller series. She’s among the new “hybrid authors,” with a foot in both traditional and the self-published worlds.

“For a long, long, long time in our business anything that you published yourself just had a stench of amateurism about it,” she said. “That was just for desperate people who couldn’t make their way through the labyrinth of the New York system, so they resorted to paying pretty much scam artists to publish their books for them at great expense. And then, Amazon came out with the Kindle, which pretty much changed everything.”

With the stigma fading, and Amazon’s help, self-publishing has exploded. On its website, Publishers Weekly last month cited a new analysis of data from Bowker, which shows the number of self-published books produced annually in the U.S. has nearly tripled, growing 287 percent since 2006, with 235,625 print and e-titles released in 2011.

As a “mid-list author” with 13 moderately successful books to her name, Montee felt the pressure when her publisher began trimming its author list to reduce costs.

“So a lot of us, and this includes a lot of my friends,” began looking for ways to survive independently, Montee said. “Amazon made it extremely easy and very attractive to go self-publish through their model.”

She and her sister regained rights to two of their early books to re-publish and have a novella in the works they plan to self-publish.

The advantages, and the profits, can be huge. The downside, of course, would make a Vegas gambler sweat.

“The largest, by far, percentage of authors are making less than $500 a year self-publishing, because there’s a glut,” said M.J. Rose, a best-selling novelist and founder of the writer’s marketing company AuthorBuzz.com. “There’s over 350,000 books being self-published every year and readers are not finding them. There’s just no way to expose people to all of these books.”

Howey, however, who spends mornings writing at his home in Jupiter, might be the perfect example of what “making it” looks like in this thoroughly modern twist on every writer’s dream. He began writing while working at a bookstore, and he received a modest advance when a small press picked up his first novel.

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New allegations surface in case against Jim Greer

TALLAHASSEE --
Allegations of a golf cart filled with prostitutes at a party in the Bahamas surfaced Friday in the criminal case against former Florida GOP Party Chairman Jim Greer.

Delmar Johnson, a former GOP official who is testifying against Greer in return for immunity from prosecution, described the women June 15 as he was questioned under oath by Greer’s lawyer.

Johnson was asked to describe events at a 2009 gathering in the Bahamas, scheduled as a thank you party for men only. Those attending included then-Gov. Charlie Crist, lobbyist Brian Ballard and GOP finance chair Harry Sargeant, among others.

Johnson said he presumed the women were prostitutes but provided no details of what occurred. He also said Greer asked him to introduce him to some airline flight attendants but he declined.

The questions came from Damon Chase, a Lake Mary lawyer who represents Greer on criminal fraud charges brought by a statewide grand jury in 2010. Greer is scheduled to face trial in February.

The Bahamas trip and the women have become a salacious sidelight in the case against Greer as lawyers for some of the men who attended the event battle to keep details of it out of the public eye.

Chase’s questions focused primarily on Victory Strategies, a business Greer established with Johnson to handle party fundraising. Johnson says Greer wanted to be a silent partner and kept his name off of corporate documents. The company is at the heart of the criminal charges against the former chairman.

Johnson said Greer created the company and asked him to become the only named official on company documents. Victory Strategies was to collect 10 percent of all money raised by the party and the two men would divide the profits with Greer collecting 60 percent, Johnson said.

Several witnesses interviewed by investigators say Greer had a number of meetings for men only and refused to allow women to attend unless they were “paid.’’

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report describing the Bahamas event was declared a public record by Orlando Judge Marc Lubet in July but has remained sealed while lawyers appeal his ruling to the Fifth District Court of Appeal.

The lawyers who are appealing say they are trying to protect “interested persons’’ who could be damaged by the contents of the report. They have refused to identify the clients who hired them.

Ballard and Sargeant have signed affidavits supporting Greer’s version of events surrounding the decision to turn party fundraising over to Victory Strategies.

Crist insists that he did not know Greer would personally benefit from the fundraising contract, but Ballard and Sargeant say the governor knew of Greer’s involvement.

A lawyer for Crist has accused Greer and Chase of possible witness tampering, saying Chase tried to get the former governor to change his testimony or face embarrassing disclosures about his personal life. Crist said Greer and his attorney are “delusional.’’

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Ohio teen sentenced to life in Craigslist murders

AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) – Seventeen-year-old Brogan Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday for his role in the killing of three men and the attempted murder of another, some of whom were lured by a Craigslist ad promising work on an Ohio farm.

Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011, but was tried as an adult. He was convicted late last month in the murders of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.

Prosecutors called the teen an apt pupil to the alleged trigger-man, Richard Beasley, 53, who is also charged in the murders.

Rafferty testified that he was terrified of the man he had considered a father figure and spiritual advisor after he saw Beasley shoot Geiger in the head execution-style.

During the trial, jurors heard testimony that the teen helped dig the graves for three of the men and was found in possession of guns and knives stolen from them after Beasley shot them.

Beasley’s trial is scheduled in the same courtroom for January 7. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Both Rafferty and Beasley’s attorneys are under a gag order and are not permitted to talk to the media.

In other incidents involving Craigslist and other social media, people advertising goods for sale or responding to ads have been attacked and killed.

In 2009, a former medical student was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist. In February, two men in Tennessee were accused of killing a man and a woman for “unfriending” the daughter of one of the suspects on Facebook.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and David Brunnstrom)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Buzzmakers: Brooke's Cancer Fight & World War Z

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. It's Brad vs. Zombies in World War Z

Zombie attack!!! Brad Pitt plays a family man and United Nations employee who faces a deadly zombie pandemic in World War Z -- we gave you an exclusive first look and now we've got the intense trailer!

Just when you thought that the zombie genre may be starting to generate less screams and more Zzzz's, World War Z arrives with an adrenaline shot in the arm for the genre -- complete with insane special effects and a claustrophobic urgency and realism not seen since the introduction of those "speed zombies" in 28 Days Later.

Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace), World War Z invades theaters June 21, 2013.

2. Oprah Reveals Her 2012 'Favorite Things'

It's officially the holiday season!

Oprah just revealed her "Favorite Things" for 2012, which includes such items as a $1,800 Jetson E-Bike, a $192 hand-picked Tom Ford lipstick palette and a $238 Lafco soap set.

"This luxuriously oversize, deliciously scented soap is my new go-to gift. I even brought a set to Mr. and Mrs. Colbert when I interviewed Stephen for Next Chapter," she says about the pricey soap set.

But of course if you don't have the income of Oprah, you can pick up O's December issue to learn how you can win all 49 of Oprah's favorite things, which hits newsstands November 6.

"Oprah's Favorite Things" is also getting its own two-hour, prime time special airing Nov. 18 on OWN. The special will surprise unsuspecting military spouses with items from the media mogul's exclusive must-have gift selections for the holiday season, and for the first time, viewers of Oprah's Favorite Things: 2012 will have the opportunity to watch and win select items featured in each segment of the show.

3. Brooke Burke-Charvet Reveals Cancer Diagnosis

Brooke Burke-Charvet released a video online Thursday to announce that she was recently diagnosed with a cancerous growth on her thyroid gland. In the video posted on her Modern Mom blog, the 41-year-old actress and TV host explained that a nodule was discovered on her thyroid and after a series of tests over the last few months, it was eventually determined to be cancerous and her thyroid will have to be removed.

"Which means that I'm going to have a nice big scar right her across my neck," Brooke said. "And I don't get to just walk around and pretend like nothing happened or not follow up or not share it, because it's going to be pretty much dead center."

Brooke said the discovery -- which originated from a regular physical -- came as a complete shock because she's otherwise healthy. "As crazy as it is, my head is in the right place, and it's going to be good," she said, adding that the doctors consider this a form of "good cancer" compared to many others and the prognosis is good. "I'm just going to make a positive out of this negative thing."

She said the surgery has been scheduled and she promised to keep her fans updated through her blog. "Now I'm ready to deal with it and I'm going to be fine. And I feel really, really strong."

Speaking on Thursday's episode of The Talk, Brooke's co-host on Dancing with the Stars, Tom Bergeron, commented on her cancer diagnosis. "My love and support are with you -- we are all there with her," he said. Bergeron added that he personally has a very positive outlook. "I've known about this for a few months. I have had experience with this in my family. You never want to hear the word cancer. But thyroid cancer is one of the most treatable cancers. It has an incredibly high success rate."

4. Kirstie on Secret Relationship with Swayze

Kirstie Alley reveals to ET's Chris Jacobs intimate details about what she says was a powerful attraction and hidden relationship with her North and South co-star, Patrick Swayze. Although both stars were married during filming of the mini-series, Alley tells Jacobs when she first saw Swayze, they had an intense attraction and she tried to avoid "going down that road," but they ultimately fell in love.

"Both of us were married. We did not have an affair. But again, I think what I did was worse. Because I think when you fall in love with someone when you're married, you jeopardize your own marriage and their marriage. It's doubly bad," said Alley.

Alley goes on to say that although she's friends with Patrick's wife, Lisa Niemi, who asked Alley to speak at Swayze's funeral, she is uncertain if Lisa is aware of their relationship.

5. One Direction & Drew Brees Play Catch - Exclusive

One Direction and Drew Brees teamed up last month to film an adorable Pepsi spot and during Thursday night's episode of The X Factor, the band will not only perform their newest singles, Live While We're Young and Little Things, but also reveal an alternate ending to the ad!

For those who missed the spot, the original ended with Drew Brees sacrificing his last can of Pepsi in order to become an unofficial member of One Direction. But, according to Angelique Krembs, VP Marketing for Pepsi, they also wanted to show fans what would happen if Drew won the last can of Pepsi. "Our latest Live For Now spot has received an enormous amount of buzz and online excitement," Krembs said. "And of course everyone wants to see the boys from 1D suit up in football gear and have some fun."

While you have to wait until Thursday to see the entire surprise ending to Pepsi's Live For Now television commercial, ETonline scored an exclusive sneak peek of One Direction tossing the pigskin around with Brees!

Tune in to The X Factor on November 8 at 8 p.m. to see the alternate ending!

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Sen. Feinstein doesn't know why FBI didn't tell her about Petraeus scandal

WASHINGTON — The career of David Petraeus, the CIA director and renowned general, was derailed by allegedly vicious emails his paramour sent to another woman. Now the CIA, FBI and White House face questions from Congress about Petraeus' love life and how his emails came under investigation.

And he may not be done with Capitol Hill himself.

Petraeus quit his post Friday after acknowledging an extramarital relationship.

MORE: PETRAEUS' MISTRESS SENT HARASSING E-MAILS TO WOMAN WHO 'THREATENED' RELATIONSHIP: SOURCES

"It was like a lightning bolt," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee and planned to have Petraeus testify this week on the Sept. 11 attack that killed the US ambassador in Libya and three other Americans.

REUTERS

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Dianne Feinstein

AFP PHOTO / ISAF

Petraeus and Paula Broadwell

Feinstein, D-Calif., said she first learned of Petraeus' affair from the media late last week and was dumbstruck when Petraeus confirmed the affair to her in a telephone call Friday. She said she has since been briefed by the FBI but wants to know why the bureau didn't notify her sooner that the CIA chief was at the center of a serious inquiry.

"We are very much able to keep things in a classified setting," she told "Fox News Sunday." ''At least if you know, you can begin to think and then to plan. And, of course, we have not had that opportunity."

Petraeus had been scheduled to appear before the intelligence committees on Thursday to testify on what the CIA knew and what it told the White House before, during and after the attack in Benghazi.

It now falls to the CIA's deputy director, Michael Morell, to answer lawmakers' questions about the attack on the U.S. Consulate and CIA base.

Feinstein said she hasn't ruled out compelling Petraeus to testify about Benghazi at a later date. "We may well ask" him at some point, she said. "I think that's up to the committee."

Meanwhile, Morell and the FBI's deputy director, Sean Joyce, also will be asked for answers about who they informed and when in the Petraeus investigation, in meetings with congressional intelligence committee leaders this Wednesday, according to a senior intelligence committee aide.

The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, was told by the Justice Department of the Petraeus investigation on election night, and then called Petraeus and urged him to resign, according to a senior US intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

But the FBI did not inform the committees that oversee the CIA until Friday, after the news about Petraeus broke.

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Gov. Rick Scott may shift stance on health reform law

With the reelection of President Barack Obama, Florida’s Republican leaders are reconsidering their fervent opposition to federal healthcare reform, triggering a discussion that could have huge repercussions for South Florida.

At stake is more than $6 billion in federal funding for Miami-Dade and Broward over the next decade and the possibility of health insurance for a large percentage of the 1.4 million people in the two counties who now lack coverage.

After the defeat of Mitt Romney, who vowed to halt Obama’s healthcare overhaul, the Republican leaders of the Florida House and Senate quickly said the Legislature needed to reexamine the federal act. On Friday evening, Gov. Rick Scott said he agreed there needed to be a discussion.

“Just saying ‘no’ is not an answer,” Scott said in a statement that repeated exactly what Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Destin, the incoming Senate president, told The Miami Herald on Thursday.

“I don’t like this law,” Gaetz also said, “but this is the law, and I believe I have a constitutional obligation to carry it out.” He added that he thinks “there needs to be some adult debate between Republicans and Democrats” on finding ways to make the law work.

Still, Gaetz, Scott and others in the Republican leadership, which controls both the Florida House and Senate, have many criticisms of what both parties now call “Obamacare.” Some are searching for compromises on how it is carried out in the state. What this means for patients and the healthcare industry in Florida — particularly South Florida — remains an enormous question mark.

Time is running short for decisions as the once-distant consequences of the Affordable Care Act are scheduled to kick in during the next 14 months.

The first deadline is Friday. That’s when states must tell Washington whether they plan to set up exchanges — marketplaces where individuals can purchase insurance at discounted group rates and cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions.

Florida’s political leaders acknowledge they won’t make the deadline. The exchanges are scheduled to start Jan. 1, 2014, and if a state doesn’t set up an exchange, its residents can participate in a federal exchange.

The next provision starts Jan. 1 with an increase in Medicaid fees for primary care physicians. Primary care physicians, who have long complained about low rates for Medicaid, which provides coverage for the poor, are scheduled to be paid at considerably higher Medicare rates — with the feds picking up all of the added cost. But such a pay hike can only happen with the approval of the governor and Legislature, and it’s unclear whether that will happen.

The following year, on Jan. 1, 2014, the biggest changes are slated to start, including a major expansion of people covered by Medicaid. An analysis from the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida shows that if the state doesn’t expand coverage, Florida will lose $27.9 billion in federal funds over 10 years.

That breaks down to a $4.5 billion loss for Miami-Dade during that time, and a $2.3 billion loss for Broward, according to the alliance’s analysis.

Under the law, Washington will pay all Medicaid expansion costs for the first three years, but then the states would have to pay up to 10 percent of the costs in following years — an expense that the Safety Net Alliance calculates will come to $1.7 billion over 10 years in Florida. The expansion could provide coverage to an additional million-plus Floridians. Reform supporters say the expansion would provide cheaper basic care that would help prevent serious illnesses that lead to expensive hospital stays.

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